Water makes up 70% of planet Earth; of that, only 1.2% is drinkable. Due to the modern water treatment system, much of the tap water we consume daily contains contaminants like chlorine, lead, and fluoride. The founder of Santevia, Yvonne Anderson, created the first Gravity Water System to combat her husband's debilitating chronic acid reflux. The Gravity Water System mimics how fresh mountain and glacier water is naturally filtered; through soil, vegetation, and sediments, picking up essential minerals like calcium and magnesium along the way. The result is alkalizing, smooth-tasting, clean water! With well over a decade in the water industry, Santevia is a true pioneer in making healthy water accessible to the modern consumer.

Keep reading to discover the journey of Santevia.

What inspired the founding of your brand?

David and Yvonne Anderson began Santevia in 2007 because of a health crisis. Suffering from chronic acid reflux, David was prescribed medication for life to combat this debilitating disease. This reactive approach to health moved Yvonne to ask, "Why was David experiencing chronic acid reflux"? Through her research, she began reevaluating their overall health from the food they ate, their exercise habits and ultimately, their water.

Their discovery: good water is a critical component of a healthy lifestyle. Santevia's first product, the Gravity Water System, was developed to combat David's chronic acid reflux. Since drinking Santevia mineralized alkaline water and improving his eating habits, David no longer suffers from this chronic

illness. His success sparked Santevia's desire to create water filters that support your body's natural resilience to inflammation and disease so you can thrive long into the future.

What are your brand's core values?

LIVE LONG, LIVE STRONG

• Balanced lifestyle
• Mental, physical, and spiritual wellness
• Aspire to live healthy & happy to 100 years old

GO FURTHER

• Be proud of what you do
• Leave things better off than you found them
• The right way isn't always the easy way

STRIVE FOR AHA! MOMENTS

• Freedom to challenge the status quo
• Innovation in all departments
• Keep things simple

WE ARE FAMILY

• Look out for each other
• Do no harm
• Do the right thing
• Give back to others!

Describe one way you try to keep innovating with your brand.

Without giving away too many details… our next new product release will reveal several new innovations! From filtration formulation to a functional, elegant design and utilizing environmentally conscious materials, this new product will surely be a hit with our customer base. After all, our customers demand innovation, and we strive to meet and exceed their expectations!

Talk about a roadblock or a challenge you faced as a business owner; have you overcome this? If so, please tell us how you did or how you're working on it.

Our products require in-store education, and in the natural health space, store staff are crucial to helping customers understand the benefits of Santevia and, ultimately, to help drive sales. One challenge we faced, however, was that our products are quite complex, and we didn't have one distilled, easily digestible message for store staff to educate their customers with.

Our solution: a new demo unit program plus a "How to sell Santevia video". The demo unit program involves supplying retailers with a demo product with a graphic decal on the product to "show" not "tell" customers how Santevia works. Then, we provided store staff with a simple video on tips on how to sell - it's only 4 minutes long, so it's not a huge drain on time.

We're proud of the complexity and science behind our product, but at the end of the day, we learned that to win new customers, we had to pare down our messaging! Lesson: keep it simple and be ready with additional information if needed. Introducing the demo unit program and video education resulted in a 16% sales increase.

What inspires you to keep going every day?

Our mission is to not only to help our customers live happier, healthier lives but also an opportunity to give back to the global community through our philanthropy program, Santevia Gives Back, inspires us to keep going every day. Santevia Gives Back is focused on bringing clean water to communities in Uganda, where 8.4 million people live in water poverty. With our charity partner Acts for Water, every Gravity Water System and MINA Alkaline Pitcher sold gives 100 days of clean water. By 2030, our goal is to give 100,000 years of clean water. Clean, disease-free water changes lives: it allows children to get an education, it allows mothers to join the workforce, and it allows communities to break the cycle of water poverty. It's this meaningful work that keeps us inspired every day.

How did you know you had a good product-market fit?

When we couldn't keep up with demand at our first retail store, Wellspring Health! There was nothing like us on the market, and our first sales indicated a strong fit for Santevia in the natural health space.

What are your aspirations for your brand 10 years from now?

To continue providing healthy water to thousands of people across local and global markets. We will continue to widen our offering of at-home water filtration products with a focus on filtration efficacy, sustainability and designs that meet and exceed the needs of our customers.